The best way to defeat an entrenched enemy is to go around him, exposing weaknesses and gaps in the defence, and exploiting them to go beyond his defences in order to threaten his whole position.

Are there customers, segments, or entire markets that are currently inadequately served or ignored by established competitors?

Are there existing products and services that could be modified to better meet these needs?

Are there components or technologies that could be re-combined or suitably modified to meet these needs?

Could you effectively outflank and bypass the competition by exploiting these under-served or ignored needs?

What competencies and resources can you bring to bear to exploit these opportunities?

What financial, human, technical, marketing, and sales capabilities could you develop or acquire to bypass the competition?

Can you keep the risks within acceptable bounds? What means could you use to do so?

Richard Martin is a Master Strategist and Leadership Catalyst. Richard brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to radically improve performance, grow, and thrive in the face of rapid change, harsh competition, and increasing uncertainty.

In military strategy and tactics, a force multiplier is anything that creates synergy between different weapons systems or units. For instance, tanks, infantry, artillery, and engineers are moderately effective if employed alone. But when unified into a combined arms team they become much more powerful. Each is a force multiplier for the others.

You can apply the same logic in business, for instance a sales situation. If you go in cold to a prospect, your chances of succeeding are pretty slim. But if you go in with a peer-to-peer referral, you’ve just upped your chances of making an inroad. Add in informative literature, access to video, web training, testimonials for satisfied clients, purchase financing, and ongoing owner support, and you’ve created a powerful combination that will lift your chances of succeeding to their maximum level.

I’m never too busy to discuss your needs or those of anyone else you feel may benefit from meeting or talking to me. So feel free to contact me at any time!

Richard Martin is a Master Strategist and Leadership Catalyst. Richard brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to radically improve performance, grow, and thrive in the face of rapid change, harsh competition, and increasing uncertainty.

What are your expansion or sustainment plans? Do you have sufficient financial, production, logistical, and operational capability to exploit opportunities? How can you free up such resources? Have you empowered your managers to seek out and exploit these opportunities? Have you given them the tools and resources to do so?

Have you developed contingency plans and capabilities to press an initial advantage, whether offensively or defensively? Do you have resources and capabilities on standby, or can you reallocate them from underperforming areas of the company? Are your people empowered to press your advantages so they can turn initial incursions into breakthroughs? Do they have the resources to do so?

Do you have the staying power to survive and thrive beyond the initial push into a new product-market segment? Can you sustain the advance and turn tactical and operational victories into strategic ones?

I’m never too busy to discuss your needs or those of anyone else you feel may benefit from meeting or talking to me. So feel free to contact me at any time!

Richard Martin is a Master Strategist and Leadership Catalyst. Richard brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to radically improve performance, grow, and thrive in the face of rapid change, harsh competition, and increasing uncertainty.

Last week Target announced that it was shutting down completely its Canadian operation, all 133 stores, and taking a $5.4 billion writedown. What was originally supposed to be the beginning of a glorious international expansion has turned into a lesson in humility and hubris. There was a lot of talk of how they had poor merchandising, high prices, lack of stock, etc etc. This is all true, but the main cause of this was arrogance. They appeared to think they could launch across Canada en masse without learning about the market(s), building a solid supplier network and logistics, and experimenting to adapt to the Canadian marketplace and competitive dynamic.

A military force that’s fixing to cross a major obstacle into new territory always starts with a bridgehead. The aim is to secure a foothold that can be defended and to build up strength and supplies of fuel and ammunition. Only when you’ve done so successfully do you extend the beachhead by probing and seeking gaps in the enemy defenses. You can then attempt a breakout. We can’t be sure Target would have been ultimately successful, but if they had started with a few stores in various parts of the country, experimented, generated experience and lessons learned, and only then tried to expand in phases, they would probably have done a lot better and would still be expanding instead of retreating humbly back to their home base in the US.

I’m never too busy to discuss your needs or those of anyone else you feel may benefit from meeting or talking to me. So feel free to contact me at any time!

Richard Martin is a Master Strategist and Leadership Catalyst. Richard brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to radically improve performance, grow, and thrive in the face of rapid change, harsh competition, and increasing uncertainty.

Do you find yourself continually responding to competitors’ actions or do you instead initiate changes that your competitors must respond to?

Do your competitors find you predictable? Is there something you could start doing that would be out of character, but that would put them on the defensive and give you back the initiative?

How do you define your mission and business? Is it a narrow view-providing a particular category of product or service-or is it a wider view-searching for ways of fulfilling customer needs at a more general or abstract level? Could you widen the scope of your business by redefining your business and mission?

Is it likely that you will still be serving exactly the same customers in the same way in one year, two years, five years, or even ten years? What would have to happen for this situation to remain the same at those time intervals? This will give you an indication of how realistic your forecasts are.

Are your decisions today likely to hem you in in the short, medium, or long terms? What can you do to innovate while maintaining your freedom of action in the longer term?

How fast can you move to implement new strategies and tactics?

I’m never too busy to discuss your needs or those of anyone else you feel may benefit from meeting or talking to me. So feel free to contact me at any time!

Richard Martin is a Master Strategist and Leadership Catalyst. Richard brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to radically improve performance, grow, and thrive in the face of rapid change, harsh competition, and increasing uncertainty.

We’ve been looking at the 6 steps in the simplified “battle procedure” for business. So far we’ve covered steps 1 and 2, respectively: warning and time estimate. This week we cover step 3, reconnaissance.

Reconnaissance is the act of seeking out new information or confirming existing assumptions and knowledge in order to decide on the best course of action for future operations. Reconnaissance is so valuable because it allows us to question the hypotheses that have guided us to that point. For instance, you may consider launching an attack on an enemy position by going through an unfamiliar area. However, you need to send scouts to confirm that the route provides good cover, is passable to your forces, and will give you the element of surprise. The last thing you want is to take a route to your objective and find upon doing so that it is impassable to tanks or you come under enemy ambush.

You can and must apply the same logic to your business strategies and tactical plans. Say you want to launch a product or service in new geographical market. It helps to scout out the terrain ahead of time to determine the following:

Are there competitors?

What do they offer?

What is the nature of buyers, their needs, their wants?

Are there government regulations you must be aware of?

Do you have the resources to establish a bridgehead in hostile territory?

Are there potential allies who can help you succeed in this terrain?

What is the weather (i.e. economic and social environment) like?

What are the threats and opportunities?

I’m never too busy to discuss your needs or those of anyone else you feel may benefit from meeting or talking to me. So feel free to contact me at any time! Ask me about my new “Battle Procedure Briefing” for business.

Richard Martin is a Master Strategist and Leadership Catalyst. Richard brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to radically improve performance, grow, and thrive in the face of rapid change, harsh competition, and increasing uncertainty.

And you don’t have to go in blind. Why don’t you call on the best strategist to give you the edge you need?

Richard Martin served as an infantry officer for 21 years in the Canadian Army.

He is the expert in applying military wisdom and know-how to winning business and organizational battles.

Richard shows you how to apply the fundamental principles of military strategy and leadership: manoeuvre and discipline.

Richard will lead a real, honest to goodness BATTLE PROCEDURE BRIEFING for you and your team that will propel you to victory!

“Did you know that an infantry battalion only needs about 3 to 4 hours of prep and planning time to be battle ready? What are you waiting for to get the same benefits for your outfit?” – Richard Martin

The agenda and content may vary according to the client’s objectives, Richard’s professional opinion and experience, or the exact nature of the situation under assessment. While the procedure is important, it is also critical that strategic and tactical conditions guide the process. Richard has the expertise and discipline to keep the team on track with a systematic approach.

Have you been passive in the face of challenges and threats from competitors? If yes, why do you think this is?

How could you become more aggressive in the face of competitors trying to take away your business?çWhat means are available to you to counterattack your competitors’ incursions?

What opportunities are there for you to occupy a position pre-emptively in order to limit incursions by competitors before they occur?

Could you conduct a spoiling attack on a competitor that is fixing to enter your market or outflank you by offering improved products or services?

Richard Martin is a Master Strategist and Leadership Catalyst. Richard brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to radically improve performance, grow, and thrive in the face of rapid change, harsh competition, and increasing uncertainty.

Every once in a while we’re faced with highly emotional reactions to risky situations. The “lone wolf” attacks perpetrated in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Ottawa on Canadian state institutions (i.e., soldiers and Parliament) last week fall into this category, as does the Ebola outbreak in western Africa. Yet, if you watch the news and read newspapers, you’d think we’re under attack!

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that the Ebola crisis in Africa isn’t dangerous and a major catastrophe, or that the terrorist threat isn’t real. But we have to keep things in perspective.

So far, a few people have contracted Ebola in North America and Europe. They have all been people who have been in prolonged bodily contact with infected victims in Africa, or who have treated these people. From what I gather, the non-Africans are also all health care workers. A few have survived, although we don’t know yet what, if any long-term consequences there will be on their health.

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) deem that a quarantine system is not needed, based on scientific opinion. Meanwhile, some states (e.g. New Jersey) have chosen to impose their own quarantine rules, overriding the considered evaluation of the CDC. The CDC is basing its recommendations on a scientific, rational assessment. I’m not sure the states and various schools that have reacted emotionally are doing the same thing. The science could be wrong, but at least it’s based on rational assessment of the risks and threat, not just emotional reaction. It’s therefore subject to updating as more empirical evidence is gathered and as the theoretical understanding of the disease progresses. Moreover, where does the epidemiological know how reside, in the CDC, or a handful of much smaller and less capable state and municipal agencies?

Whenever we face a potential health crisis, such as a pandemic or epidemic, it’s normal to assess the threats and risks and take preventive or compensatory action. On the other hand, we have to keep the threat in perspective. Every year, thousands of parents refuse to have their children inoculated against common diseases. Whether we’re talking about measles or smallpox, the risks of infection and mortality vary. The common element is that this stupid attitude toward proven measures for preventing and containing these diseases has enabled a periodic resurgence of measles, pertussis (whooping cough), etc. And, we’ve been lucky that smallpox has not come back in strength.

Here’s the thing, though: measles and pertussis can actually kill people, especially the weakest, and that usually means children. So, on the one hand we have an overreaction to Ebola by state and municipal authorities in the US (and no doubt other countries), while some people are too fearful or pigheaded to take active measures such as allowing vaccinations for their children. Not only does this put their own children at risk, but it reduces the overall “herd immunity” of a population. This is required to protect those for whom vaccination doesn’t work no matter what. If you doubt this, I invite you to watch a recent episode of PBS’s Nova science documentary on vaccination panics in the US. You can watch it online.

There is also a lack of perspective on the terrorism threat, and we need a balanced and reasoned approach to the risks of what are known as “lone wolf” terrorists. This isn’t a new threat, or proper to Islamic extremism. There have always been crackpots with various motivations, be they environmentalists ready to spike trees in order to injure forestry workers or Jewish ultra-orthodox extremists willing to blow themselves up in Jerusalem. We also need to keep in mind that terrorism and urban guerrilla are the strategy of the weak. As I wrote in my book, BrilliantManoeuvres, it “stems from a realization the force one is commanding is incapable of highly coordinated, and highly damaging offensive action.” Security consultancy and analysis firm STRATFOR points out that the “lone wolf” approach to Jihadism is actually mostly a failure for extremist Muslims intending on creating havoc in the West. It comes from a realization that they are unable to launch destructive and coordinated attacks without exposing themselves to extreme risks of mission failure.

When a crisis hits, it’s time to think, even if hastily, not to panic and run around responding to popular appeals to “do something, anything.” We often have to weigh a range of unsavoury options in order to select and implement a “least bad” solution. The danger with overreacting to terrorism is that we impose so many restrictions on civil liberties and access to democratic institutions that the terrorists get a political and social response that is out of all proportion to the actual risks.

When we’re talking about health risks, the danger is that we overreact while we ignore or tolerate much more damning behaviours in our own back yard. Reasonable measures to prevent and mitigate contagion from Africa are one thing. But meanwhile, there are incipient outbreaks of easily preventable and controllable diseases right here, and they don’t come from Africa.

Richard Martin is a Master Strategist and Leadership Catalyst. Richard brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to radically improve performance, grow, and thrive in the face of rapid change, harsh competition, and increasing uncertainty.